Exoskeleton
by AcadianWitch
Summary: She wonders what "black blood" even is. Whether or not she finds out doesn't concern her too much; he'll prove useful soon enough.
1. Prologue

**This rewrite turned out to be way more drastic than I thought.**

Shaula's heels clack throughout the hallways and corridors of Medusa's hideout. _Lair._ Whatever the hell she called it.

It didn't matter now, she was dead.

She was surprised.

At first, rumors had spread from witch to witch; the second of the Gorgon sisters was dead. It had been hundreds of years since Arachne had disappeared, and now another was gone. This fact brought a smirk to Shaula's face. She was the only one left.

There were still things left unanswered, though, there were still rumors left to confirm. Her fingers scrapped along the streaks of dried blood that adorned parts of the walls. How long _had_ she been dead? There was no corpse, none that anyone was able to find. No roaming soul, no snakes, nothing. Shaula took matters into her own hands.

Two figures emerge from the periphery of her vision. A subtle twist of her arm allows a chain, beset at it's end with a sharp point, to fall into her hand. Turning her head, she makes no attempt to portray herself as weak.

"Show yourself."

Her command echoes throughout the dark and decrepit hallway, tumbling throughout wildly. Nothing responds.

The two figures march at the same pace, and it is only after they emerge into the light does she recognize them. Their eyes are not that of a normal human, but are instead occupied by the astrological sign for Scorpio. Their frail bodies are clothed only in orange tunics, and rags that they wear from their necks. _My soldiers._ Convicts she found on the run. No one would miss these miserable goons if they _happened_ to go missing. She sighs, before turning to run her hand over streaks of blood on the walls.

"Report."

The taller one speaks first, he makes no real attempt to show emotion, his speech is completely avoid of anything that would show his feelings; he has none now. Why would he need them?

"We have not found Medusa, Shaula-sama."

Shaula turns her head to the shorter one with a disappointed expression. "Anything of note that I should obtain?"

He shakes his head. "No, Shaula-sama. Whoever was here, they took anything of note. There are scattered pages and knocked over vials, but that's it."

A sigh escapes her mouth. _Damnit_. She expected to find at least _something_ relating to Medusa's sudden disappearance. Her feet quickly stride over to where the two brainwashed criminals she currently controls stand. They don't understand what they're doing. They don't know why they were just sifting through the lair of one of the most dangerous witches to have ever walked the earth.

They don't know why she's placing the end of her pointed chain at the nape of their necks.

They don't know why everything is black.

Their corpses are now sitting slumped on their fronts, blood drips onto the floor, it barely makes a sound. Shaula smiles, satisfied. Her venom works better than she had anticipated. Of course, these were weak, miserable souls, but that's all she needs.

The wings in the west and east were searched by them, all that remains is for her to move forward. There is no point in wasting time, this place unnerves her. So, she sets off, and her footsteps become the sole sound throughout the compound.

It isn't long before she finds herself in a large room, almost circular in design. In the middle sits a crystal ball, at one point, at least. Now it lies in pieces, scattered throughout the room. Similar blood stains line the room, with no notable patterns. Nothing to track. She walks into the center, observing the dark corners of the room where the support structures lie.

Why is she even here? She sighs again. Chasing phantoms, how sad. She wasn't going to obtain anything of use by running after the ghost of her dead sister. At the very least, it proved the viability of the traitor venom she had been working on. So, she turns around to leave; but something is off...

Goosebumps arise on her arm. There are few things that scare her, but being watched from somewhere she cannot see is one of them. The chain falls into her hand again as she turns her head to observe her surroundings.

" _Hello..?"_

The voice is meek, quiet, barely audible were it not for the capacity of the room to help echo it.

She wheels around to try to find the source of the noise, all she can discern is that it comes from behind one of the pillars that are throughout the room. She extends her hand to the right, as a magical symbols fly throughout the air.

"Show yourself, or I'll blow this place to pieces."

Nothing responds. She decides to make due on her promise.

 _Magic Mandalas!_

A few beams of concentrated energy tear throughout the air, coming into violent contact with one of the walls. It explodes in a great gout of light and smoke, coming to rest is the flow of dust and debris. She finds no torn biological matter in the wreckage, she must've missed.

Finally, something appears, out of a column from the right.

A person?

She raises an eyebrow at the shivering mess of a person that emerged from behind the shadows. He's clad in a stained black robe, it clings to what little muscle and fat he has on his body. Slowly, she marches upon the child, who can only weakly raise the black sword he seems to wield.

Now that she is close, she sees what he is. A crying child, no more than eight or nine. His face is marked with scratches and dried tears. His pink hair is unkempt, his gray eyes are twitching with fear. Her hands slump to the sides.

"Put the sword down. Who are you?"

What dread was in her has been swept from her. She's surprised the child can even hold up the sword or speak, with how emaciated he is. But what is he even doing here?

The arm he uses to hold the blade falls from it's position, and the sword crashes against the ground, a scraping noise accompanying it. The boy can't seem to look her in the eyes, he shoves his head to stare at the ground. A minute or so passes, and Shaula turns on her heel.

"If you aren't going to tell me anything, than I'm leaving."

She tilts her head back at the child, whose only response is to tremble in place. The sight unnerves her in a primal way, something is visibly wrong with him. Her shoes tap against the cobblestone floor as she sets off for the entrance.

 _Tap._

 _Tap._

 _Tap._

" _W-wait!"_

She exhales in an aloof manner, as she turns back around. The child is nervously looking at her, his liq quivering, his eyes watering. He doesn't even shy away from her as she quickly steps back in front of him.

"P-please don't go!" He begs, his voice weak and watery. Her expression is one of boredom.

"Why shouldn't I, if you aren't going to be helpful?"

The room is quiet, the only audible noise is his cracking voice; he can't find the right words to answer. The blade speaks for him.

" _DAMN IT CRONA! KILL HER!"_

The rattling voice that resonates from the blade shocks the boy, while confusing the witch, who raises an eyebrow. _A demon weapon?_ It doesn't sound very threatening, especially not when wielded by the twig with flesh that stands in front of her.

"W-w-why would I do that? Maybe she can help us, I don't know..." He mutters, as he nervously rubs his arm.

Shaula raises a finger, an attempt to get a word in, before the blade simply grunts and melds out of form, it turns into a stream of black mass that retracts into the child. _What the hell is this?_ At least she has a name now.

"Crona. What are you doing here?"

He jolts in place at the uttering of his name, and all he can do is nervously shove his two index fingers together. How does he respond to that? He doesn't know her, he can't figure out how to deal with it.

"I… guess I've always been here. M-mother lived here, so I guess I did."

"...Mother? Who was your mother?"

He looks back up at her with gray eyes, a bit more steady now, and nods. "Uh-huh. Lady Medusa..."

Shaula's eye twitches. She's a bit more intrigued now. "You… are Medusa's child? Where is she?"

"I don't know." He half-heartedly responds. "A bunch of people came over, I heard yelling, and then..."

His head bows, and he idly kicks the ground, nearly tripping over himself doing so. With her senses a bit rattled by the atmosphere that permeates this accursed place, Shaula gently extends her hand, as Crona looks up confused.

"Come with me."

He blinks at her in shock for a few moments, before meekly raising up his hands and waving them. "Ahh, I can't! What if Lady Medusa comes b-"

"She isn't. She's dead. Besides, at this rate you'll starve if you stay here any longer."

Her words cut their intended path, not helped by her blank expression. While she said it partly to convince the child, she hopes that her words make it clear that this isn't a choice. This demon child is coming with her, whether he wants to or not. What she'll do with him is the question.

The child clutches his hands close to his emaciated figure. He wasn't told a whole lot about the world, but he supposes she's right. How long does he expect to last like this? Plus, any estimation of survival has to take into account Ragnarok not bullying him to death. Crona nervously extends his hand, before long it gently rests in Shaula's open palm.

He almost jumps back as her hands encompasses his, and her thumb rubs over the entirety of his digit. It's not exactly comforting, but it isn't rough. She's curious what children are supposed to be like. So tiny, so fragile. The witch steps up to her feet, before looking around her and slightly tugging the child towards her. The child's hand tightly grips onto her index finger as she leads him out of the place, neither of them making any attempt to mention the corpses of the convicts that lay in the middle of the hallway. The only way to go is straight ahead, into the bright light that bleeds through the crude opening of the facility.

…

Her house sits in the middle of nowhere. Why wouldn't it?

Solitude was what she was forced into, given Death's no tolerance policy towards witches. Whatever, it didn't matter. It was nice and out of the way, far from the prying eyes of humans. For now, she has the child to deal with.

Both of them are sitting cross-legged across from each other in the middle of her living room, other than a couch, there is no furniture. Her arms gently rest in her folded knees, as she patiently observes Crona, who idly pecks at a bowl of ramen. She studies his mannerisms; how he moves his arms, how he breathes, and he sits. It's all so mechanical, so fidgety. He's afraid of something, but she has no clue of what. _Medusa? She's dead._

He sets the bowl down slowly, before mimicking the way she is sitting, his drab eyes slowly looking her over. The silence continues for a few more minutes, before he finally says something.

"W-what are you going to do to me…?"

Shaula sighs before resting her chin into her open palm. "I don't know."

He seems almost relieved at her indifference. He seems to consider another question, before hastily retracting his motions, which she quickly notices.

"You're wondering who I am, aren't you?"

Crona nervously nods.

"I'm Shaula. I'm a witch." She shrugs absentmindedly, what else is there to say? She has no clue if the how he would react to find out she's his aunt, so it's a detail she leaves out. Her eyes fall back on the child.

"Medusa never loved you at all, did she?"

The little one jerks back at the words. He's young, and he reacts like a child would: defensively. Shaking his head, he feels drawn to defend Medusa in some way. "No, no, it's not like th-"

"When was the last time she fed you?"

Her words cut daggers in the boy, who is slowly becoming deeply unsettled. It hadn't been _that_ long since this whole mess happened, but he couldn't really answer that. Almost instinctively, he found his hands traveling to his ribs, which jutted against his pale and thin skin. The lump in his throat is growing, as Shaula shifts herself to be right in front of him.

Really, it was a bit of a gamble to suggest his mother was abusive, but she figured it out easily enough. The sheer state he was in, combined with the _way_ he talked about her when she asked was enough for her. Their earlier conversation when they first came to the house was brief, but told her all she needed to know.

Besides, she _knew_ who Medusa was, probably better than anyone did.

She gently grabs his hands away from his chest and brings them to rest in her own. A wide smirk is what she envisions as she goes to softly smile to him. Shaula supposes she's figured it out. He seems to crave protection of some sort, so why not give him that?

"I'm not going to hurt you. You don't have to worry about that anymore. Stay with me."

His hands nervously shake in her grasp. How does he react to that? Lady Medusa never taught him about this. The offer Shaula presents, as she mentally notes, is hard to resist from any way she could present it. It's practical, at the very least; what the hell is this twig of a child going to do on his lonesome?

All he can do is meekly nod, something resembling an awkward and forced smile flashing upon his face. It's just a mimicry from what Shaula is doing; that's all he knows how to do, follow instructions. Be dependent. The idea is not so poisonous to him, though. He realizes what she does: what else is he going to do? Besides, she seems nice enough. The only person he ever relied upon, or really knew, is dead, and he doesn't find himself all that torn up about it. His smile grows shaky, as she pulls him into a tight hug that seems to calm him. He can't recall a moment where Medusa did that for him, and he finds himself slackening in her embrace.

"Good boy." Shaula coos, as her hands rub through his unkempt hair. He seems convinced, enough to stay for a bit. What she'll do with him, that's the question. Picking up her sister's scraps isn't _exactly_ what she had planned, but she felt it as almost her duty to take him in. After all, he'll prove himself useful in some fashion soon enough, especially once she figures out what this black blood nonsense he keeps talking about is.

That's all the hug is for, reassurance. It's a pity play for her to bargain with. Is it genuine? She mentally confirms that it isn't supposed to be, even if he seems to buy it. Still, she can't help but see something in the kid, something she's all to familiar with: _loneliness._ She does her best to shrug the new mysterious emotion off as best she can, there are big plans ahead that she has to prepare for, that he has to prepare for. She'll have to figure out what the hell that _thing_ inside of him is, whatever Medusa was planning with it.

A weak sigh escapes her lips, as the boy rests his head into her shoulder. At least they each have someone to talk to.

...


	2. Plains

… _He shows very little ambitions in life, and only seems to exist as I need him to; in essence, he does what I ask, when I ask it, without any complaining or hesitation. Currently, I have only ga_ _gu_ _ed his_ _subservience_ _in performing small and menial tasks, but I do not believe it would be much of a stretch to suggest that this would not so different with more stressful situations._ _Despite being only with me a month, he demonstrates a remarkable ability to follow orders._ _Personality wise, he is incredibly skittish and is constantly worried about something, despite my assurances. He seems to demonstrate the ability to display, if not exactly understand, most emotions; he reacts with mild joy and contentment whenever I praise him or show physical reinforcement (hugging,_ _gentle touching,_ _etc.), while also demonstrating fear to various degrees whenever I threaten him verbally. I have set out to be incredibly careful with how I administer these life tests as not to frighten him, as I remain mostly unaware of what he is capable of, and would prefer_ not _to have to administer physical correction._ _As a side_ _note, I assigned him the mostly insignificant birth date of September the_ _1st_ _, primarily for my own_ _convenience_ _; he was very confused at the concept of birthdays,_ _and has no clue how old he is._

 _My earlier statements about Medusa are ones he continues to not deny, and he remains incredibly uncomfortable about the topic whenever I attempt to sap information out of him. I conducted a physical of him recently; discounting his starved body, he demonstrates little physical problems, and displays no sign of having been beaten or physically reprimanded_ _(_ _to the point of scarring_ _or major bodily harm)_ _. Despite this, the famished state is something he seems to be used to. I questioned him about it, and after some prying he divulged cryptic nonsense about "the dark room" and "the little one". He became far more nervous than usual whenever I later asked him about these again._ _The next task at hand should be to_ _simply decide why I should keep him around. Why Medusa thought this child would be a boon to her remains a mys-_

The constant writing and sliding of her pen is interrupted by something, a squeak, the sound of footsteps against the wooden floor. Years of running from things has made her unnaturally gifted at knowing when she's being watched, and the goosebumps appear on her arms again.

"Crona. Do you need something?" She inquires, not even turning around from her desk. The boy shirks backs slightly against the door frame, as he grips onto it for some form of comfort. With the lack of an immediate response, she turns back in her chair to face him with a blank expression.

"I-I… just wanted to know if there was something I should call you..." He mutters, nervously averting her gaze.

Shaula blinks a few times before responding, mildly confused. "Just my name is fine. Is there something else you wanted to call me?"

He steps into view more clearly, before nervously fiddling with his fingers. "N-no… It's just, Lady Medusa had me call her that..."

"I'm not Medusa."

Her comment is sharp, corrective. It's something she's been telling him for a month now, and she's frankly getting annoyed at his worrying. Whatever he means by comparing her to her sister is lost on her, but the idea simply disgusts her on a primal level. She's spent years trying to prove herself, and this isn't going to get in the way of that.

Crona shirks in place again at her correction. He simply stands in place as she rises up from her seat and strides over to where he stands, showing no sign of resisting as she places her hands on his shoulders.

"Why don't you go back to your room and sleep? You should change when you wake up, too. I can't stand that robe..."

He slowly nods as he shuffles down the hallway, left to find the clothes on his own devices. There's something about that frilly black dress he wore that frustrates her, if only because she's left in bewilderment as to why Medusa, of all people, would have such a thing to give to a child. She supposes that brings up the next obvious question: why did she have this kid in the first place? All she can do is put the question off for another day or two.

Shaula observes the child as he walks down the long hallway towards his room, her eyes tracking his scattered movement, even as he reaches the door that leads to the closest thing he gets to a sanctuary, and he stops. He turns his head to face her, his pink hair the only thing that remains visible. She tilts her head to the side, expecting something.

"C-could..." He begins, his voice even shakier than normal, "…could I call you mom…?"

Her expression doesn't change, besides a soft, yet fake, saccharine smile glazing her lips.

"Go to bed."

…

The two of them stand in the yard in front of her house. He nervously tugs at the skirt of the outfit she gave him, almost an exact copy of the one she usually wears; a sailor uniform, except this time it's all black, with golden arrows flying out across the chest. It feels _off_ to him, even if he doesn't get why. She flicks the brim of her sun hat up and dusts her blouse idly, before sighing and waving her hand dismissively.

"Did you sleep well?"

He shakes his head, very clearly trying to avoid her gaze. She glares down at him, content to simply stare him down until he buckles under the pressure. When he doesn't, she rolls her eyes.

"I want you to summon that sword you wielded. Back then." Shaula prompts, crossing her arms.

The gentle breeze is all that can be heard in response, as the boy simply rubs his right arm as a form of coping. His dreary eyes dart in numerous directions, and he remains firmly planted in place. "I-I don't know if I can… should I…?"

Shaula is starting to get visibly frustrated with his mannerisms. Blood rushes to her face and her eyes twitch involuntarily, it's something that's started to happen a lot recently. She does her best to compose herself before speaking again.

"You can, Crona. I'm trying to figure out what this whole thing is about. Please cooperate with me."

The "thing" in question is Crona obviously, although he doesn't pick up on this slight. Medusa wasn't the only one to fancy herself some rogue scientist, "unbound by morality" or whatever philosophical prattle she used to justify herself. For Shaula, everything has to be perfect, everything serves its own goal and purpose; she's just trying to find one for the boy.

He just continues to nervously mend a nonexistent wound on his arm, before resolving to follow the order. Shaula seems nice enough to him, but all it's doing is making him confused. He shakes the thoughts from his mind before raising up his arm at a ninety-degree angle and staring off into space.

"Ragnarok."

It's a mix between a statement and a pleading question. Still, something _does_ happen: after a second or two, a black cloud of sorts begins to float around him, seeming to manifest out of his back. Shaula perks up at this, her eyes tracing any movement, any action she can mentally record. The boy's shaking hand reaches into the mass slowly, and as he pulls down, a blade, something resembling a straight sword follow it. After a few painfully long seconds, the point of the blade rests gently on the grass, and the mist recedes.

"My blood is black, you know..."

A fragile smirk draws across the witch's face. She's _very_ aware, with how many times the child has cryptically stammered that line out at seemingly random intervals. It raises even more questions than it solves, and all of them are flying through her mind right now. All she can do is giggle nervously before recomposing herself.

"So, that's 'Ragnarok'?"

He still continues to look at her with a glare that communicates a mixture of dread and boredom. "Uh-huh." Is all he replies with, as he slowly scratches nonsensical markings into the ground with the ebony point.

The look on his face confuses her. She's well recorded his strange attitude to certain things, but this is new. He's _not_ the scared, cowering little child she first met. He's something different; something more _mad_.

Her eye is twitching again. So is his, it follows no pattern, it shows no particular preference to which ocular crevice it chooses. She only notices it after a good minute of silence, that's new to her. The blade, almost feasting on the silence of the situation, shutters in his hand.

"C'mon Crona, kill the witch!" It exclaims, a grin forms on the mouth. "Just like we talked about!"

Shaula's eyes dart from the blade to the boy. The tension in the air is palpable, and her arms shirk to her chest defensively. A twist of her arm allows the chain she uses as a weapon to fall from inside her sleeve into her hand, and she holds out her other arm as a warning. She has to try _something_ that doesn't involve killing him. Slowly, she takes a few steps towards his person.

"Calm down, Crona."

His eyes move swiftly, from the blade to her slowly advancing figure. "I don't know… do you think she'd be as easy to take as the little one…?"

The blade rattles again. "Bah, she ain't so tough! Not nearly as scary as that old bat Medusa was!"

With only a couple of yards between them, she continues her advance as he stares lazily down at his forced companion. "I guess. Weren't we supposed to help her…? I can't remember-how do I deal with forgetting things?" He mutters, unaware that she's standing in front of him now. The only way he's made to notice is by the hand that now gently rests on his shoulder.

Crona slowly raises his head to meet her glare. She contains the same fragile smile she adopted earlier, as sweat beads form on her forehead. She has the chain magically retract up her sleeve, and she places her other hand on his opposite shoulder.

"Everything is fine. Mother is here. Be calm."

The words cause him to blink and stop shaking in place for a moment, as he looks up a bit into her eyes, and his grip on the demon weapon slackens. The thoughts of being forced to kill the little one still blink throughout his scattered brain.

 _Go on Crona. Kill it._ She would always demand.

 _B-but I can't!_

So, she locked him in the room for as many days and as many nights as she saw fit to teach him a lesson. He was taught to obey and carry out whatever he was ordered to do. If he did so, he ate, and if he didn't, then it was another few days scampering around in darkness with Ragnarok. He would always cringe back whenever she used to speak to him; yet he doesn't find himself doing that now. When Shaula tells him to do something, he follows. When she tells him to be calm, he finds his shot nerves, running with black blood, beginning to loosen. Whenever she pulls him into a gentle hug, he doesn't resist, he instead clings on for dear life. Ragnarok would make a disgusted sound before retracting into his back, content to simply yell at him whenever they were alone, and yet he doesn't find himself dreading that as much anymore.

"You don't have anything to fear, anymore. You're going to be alright."

How does he handle that sentence that he interprets as a command? The concept of abolishing fear seems futile. The search for the answer breaks what little edge he had left in him at that moment, and Shaula is alerted physically to the teardrops that gently fall onto her shirt.

Neither of them say anything for the next five minutes they stand like this. It ends only when she pulls back and ruffles his hair. They would walk back to the house, have another one of their brief and cryptic conversations, before he retreated to his room for a few hours to rest, as per what he was told to do.

His room is simple, it holds no more than it needs. The bed is soft yet firm, there's a small window that allows the gentle weather of the surrounding plain to bask the room in a gentle light. Even with this, he finds himself doing the same thing his normally addled mind tells him to do: he hugs a pillow and stares at the wall. Complex thoughts don't rattle through his mind, for he has none to think of. A child he is, and he has a child's understanding of the world. Still, he can understand that word: _mother._ It bounces through his mind like marbles, and he returns more often than not to ponder if he really understands what it means.

 _Shaula is my mother now._ He repeats to internally, then quietly to himself. The last time he says it, he puts as much confidence as possible into it, and he seems nominally satisfied. Ragnarok hasn't done his usual act of talking to him in the room, he's probably mad. He wonders if Ragnarok was always like this, before reasoning that he must've been; what other Ragnarok did he know?

Even with this, he still manages to fall asleep peacefully for the first time in a while, with her assurances carrying him. _Everything is going to be alright._

…

 _The planned attempt to figure out whatever the weapon that seems to exist in him ended in total failure. I only managed to procure a name ("Ragnarok") and no other useful data. The depth of the child's mental instability seems to be even greater than I first anticipated, as he quickly was manipulated by said weapon into nearly killing me. I was able to calm him down, but there was nothing else useful that I gained._

 _He probably now regards me as his mother in a way, and last night he asked if he could call me such. His desire for protection has been shown in his time with me to be a consistent driving force behind his mental state, and it is probably in my best interest to keep the charade up. I remain at a crossroads at what to do with him, especially given how fragile he seems to be._

 _While I have no animosity towards the child, and express some sympathy towards his plight, I need to keep in mind that ultimately I must find some purpose for him, as the idea of raising Medusa's son doesn't sound terribly interesting as of the moment. Currently, it is probably best if I attempt to pry more information from him about his past, his involvement with "Ragnarok", and attempt to see if he had any idea of what Medusa had in store for him._

 _-End log._

The decline in the quality of her handwriting is obvious as she reaches the last paragraph and the last few sentences of it especially. It's usually a sign that she needs to sleep, and it, along with the setting of the sun, is one of the few things that truly bind her to the passage of time.

She slinks into bed and resolves to stare at the sleeping until the declining light brings her to rest. Her mind is about as rattled as his, and thousands of possibilities and outcomes for this scenario flash throughout her mind. It's only after she forcefully purges them all from her mind does she find something clear, a single word: _mother._

 _Mother._ Repeating it in her mind causes her to smirk. It only grows in wicked strength the longer she thinks about it, and the need for slumber slowly consumes her.

 _Mother. How useful. How convenient!_

 _..._


	3. A few choice words and a gold band

Sitting in the quiet is how he spends most of his mornings. He cuddles the pillow, falling into it's unreciprocating embrace. Crona dashes strands of his pink hair out of his eyes to stare through the stout window, as the sun rises gently over the horizon. He's done that exact same series of actions, for every single morning since he's been with Shaula, and the only thing that seems to change is how he feels. Still, he doesn't feel any particularly strong emotion today, he isn't scared or worried; he's mostly content to sit around for a while. He feels in control, for the first time in a while.

The one thing he _can't_ control, is Ragnarok.

 _Damnit Crona! I'm gettin' sick of your shit!_

His mind rattles with the harsh words of the demon he's had melded into his blood. It's strange, at first, just to hear Ragnarok speaking in his conscious instead of being berated by the black demon in the flesh; it's not very threatening.

 _What? What does that mean?_ He wonders, it feels distinctly "off" to just _think_ words and have something respond to them.

 _GODDAMNIT LISTEN TO ME! Don't trust that witch. You're startin' to worry me here, calling her "mom" and shit like that._ Ragnarok chastises. Before he can even respond, he finally feels something he's all too used to, the shifting of weight on his back, the cracking and squishing of the black blood into place; all it takes is the demon forcefully tugging on his ear to remind him that they are absolutely stuck with each other.

"Ow, stop that! Why are you being so quiet now?" Crona inquires, whining at the mild pain he's mostly used to by now.

"Because!" Ragnarok hisses,"I'm trying to figure this out… we had that bitch cornered yesterday, you idiot! Why couldn't ya' do it, huh!"

"I-I don't know..."

The demon sword sighs loudly before shaking his head. "Fine! Then come get me when you figure it out, you pushover."

The tension at his spine that he's so used to disappears, and soon Crona is just left sitting with himself, nothing left to talk to. His gaze settles at the horizon again, his eyes tracing the rising sun, the orange glow slowly illuminating the room. Time passes, and it's the only one of his sense other than touch that seems active, as he continues to grip the pillow tighter. He hears something to break up the monotony: footsteps. Then, the opening of the door, and finally, a voice he's grown used to.

"Get dressed, we have business to attend to."

…

"W-why are we here…?"

Crona knows _where_ they are. He's been to the Witch's Realm more than a few times, dragged along by Medusa for Mass. Strange events, he barely understands anything that goes on, it's mostly a bunch of shouting. Still, he's never gotten used to the place; it's climate is strangely uncomfortable, chilly and humid, almost too hot to wear anything to counter the cold atmosphere. The buildings are all abnormal, built on hundreds of conflicting styles, neon lights and candlelight all stand together to create an area distinctly inhuman.

"For Mass, I'm sure you've been here before." Shaula promptly responds. "Normally I'd write a letter to Maba asking for an excuse but she's been antsy lately. Paranoid old hag…"

She seems lost in an angered form of thought, before suddenly snapping her view to Crona. "You… need to get better at tying that." Her voice is mildly annoyed, as she tugs on the collar to the sailor uniform he's wearing, the dark patterns on it forming a contrast to the one she owns. He halts for a second, a lump in his throat forming over his attempt to apologize; she snaps her head to the side.

"Let's go. While we're here, you're going to stay right by my side; do not leave me, do not speak unless you are spoken to, understood?

He meekly nods. "Yes ma'am."

"Good." She confirms, before leading him from the atrium they were standing in to a crowded hallway, awash with a few dozen groups of cloaked witches quietly chatting with each other about inane topics. Shaula mentally confirms that most of them are far younger than her, the topics of their discussion tell her all she needs to know. They prattle about the most useless and silly applications of magic, they talk in frilly tones, the have no care in the world.

 _So this is who we have left to carry on the Order? Useless. None of these mongrels would have lasted two decades back in our time._

Shaula sighs loud enough for all in the room to hear and glare daggers at her. She forgets frequently how old she even is, the reminders she placed all having been wiped away by some accident of thought. Eight-hundred years have passed at the very least, but it was never the mechanical passage of time that bound her to the old way of thinking, for age has not affected her appearance in the slightest. It was always the way she thought, the way the Sway of Magic contracted her mind. She always considered herself in control, but maybe she was one of the most affected; the Sway would charge into her thoughts, and all she could think about was killing, bringing ruin to something, whether it was humanity, or Death and his lackies.

 _It's their fault I'm in this situation… but one day, they'll learn. One day, they'll learn to fear our name again…_

"Gorgon!"

As the two of them attempt to cross the doorway that leads to the courtroom, a wooden staff is thrown in front of her path. She jumps back slightly, before gritting her teeth and glaring at the one who would dare impede her: a short little witch, with silver hair and a pension for being a nuisance. Shaula rolls her eyes as Crona shirks behind her.

"What do _you_ want, Eruka?"

Eruka grins in a satisfied manner. "At least you remember my name. Guess you're the only one left, with that creepy bitch of a sister you had gone, huh?" She mocks, an instinctual "ribbit" following her sentence. Shaula glares at her sideways, eye twitching.

"Eruka, you would do well not to cause a scene. Get out of my way, or we'll end up seeing how long it takes for a frog to jump while venom is frying their tiny little mind."

Her threat seems to hit where she intended, as the frog witch grits her teeth and shirks back slightly, fellow witches pulling her out of harm's way. Shaula tugs on Crona's arm, and they continue on unimpeded. All they hear before the large double doors close behind them are the sounds of inane giggling and annoyed murmuring. Shaula scans the courtroom, a open air room that borders on a stadium, before mentally steeling herself for a meeting she would much rather not have. She approaches the center of the room, before genuflecting at the two figures that stand imposingly at the desk at the far end, Crona meekly trying to follow her routine, this particular process unknown to him.

"Joma joma wachi suchi…" Shaula rattles, almost mechanically. The two figures, one half the height of the other, seem to be whispering amongst themselves before anything happens. The taller one, with her hands inlay in her tunic, speaks first.

"RISE! You're late, Gorgon!" She yells, her face suddenly rising with artificial fury. Shaula follows the command, nudging Crona in the shoulder to follow her example.

"I… don't believe myself to be, Judge." Shaula attempts to explain, before being cut off by the Judge racking her pipe against the wooden table, the harsh noise reverberating throughout the whole room, it sends a chill down Crona's spine.

" _SILENCE_! Maba-sama doesn't have time to waste, if you were personally summoned, you should be poignant!"

Shaula simply bows her head again. "My apologies, Maba-sama."

The shorter one, clad in what look like a bunch of overlaying jackets held together by safety pins, simply floats in place, shaking her head slightly. "Nyamu-nyamu…" She mutters, exasperated. "Joma joma wachi suchi. Report, Gorgon, mass begins soon."

The witch nods before dusting off her cloak and flicking the brim of her hat up, content with receiving late greetings. "Ah, right. I found nothing of any real interest… Medusa is nowhere to be seen, either; I've been operating under the assumption that she's been killed."

Maba tilts her head to the side, her singular red eye growing wide."Oh? The child was apparently interesting enough for you to take."

"Yes… One of the reasons I requested this meeting was to see if you knew anything about him."

The Judge and Witch Queen both cast short glances at each other, before sighing in unison. Maba waves one of her wings for emphasis. "One of the reasons we had you investigate was to figure out more about him. Medusa brought him to Mass a few times… she was very hush-hush about him. Does he display any… unique qualities?"

Shaula crosses her arms before batting a glare to Crona. _They don't need to know... not yet at least._

"Nothing out of the ordinary. He doesn't display any notable capabilities, if that's what you're wondering."

Maba nods, seemingly disappointed. "Alright, then he's yours if you can find a use for him. As for Medusa, we haven't been able to track her down or her attackers, either, so we're at a dead end it seems. Is there anything else…?"

"Nothing else, Maba-sama." Shaula states, bowing slightly. Crona is left to stand nervously behind her, confused at most of the talk that goes on. They're mentioning him, they're mentioning Medusa, but he can't begin to fathom the stakes, why they're doing this, or who most of them even are. Maba seems familiar to him, he knows this place, but he finds the memories of not too long ago fading from him in strange doses.

Maba taps the Judge on the shoulder, who in turn produces a small leather-bound tome from her robe. "Payment, as discussed. Learn to stay in the good graces of the Order, and you'll find the rewards are bountiful." Maba chips, as the Judge tosses the book across the room. It lands with a thud in front of Shaula, who picks it up, trying not to roll her eyes at the witch queen's melodramatic statement. "Your research is... interesting, to say the least. Joma joma dublasha."

"Joma joma dublasha..." Shaula states, gracefully bowing a second time in response. She takes one last look at Maba and the Judge, both staring at her intently, before nudging Crona on the shoulder and walking away, disappearing from sight behind the wrought-iron doors to the courtroom.

The Judge takes a second after the door closes loudly before speaking. "She's lying about the child."

Maba gives a rare smile under the shadow of her concealed face. "I'm very aware of that."

"T-then why didn't you say anything?" Her assistant asks, slightly flustered.

"Because! She isn't going to do anything to slight us. It's not worth fighting over Medusa's former experiment. She investigated Medusa's disappearance, and that's what we asked of her, no?"

The Judge nods, her whiskers twitching as a breeze blows through the stadium. She would say more, but she doesn't exist to question Maba's orders or opinions; she lives to serve. As long as Shaula understood her place in the Order, maybe they _would_ get along.

After all, Shaula was well acquainted with the consequences of treason.

...

Mass flies by, and neither the witch nor Crona retain much of the information from it. Her out of general boredom, he because of his lack of understanding. He stands as he did in the courtroom, shirking behind her, trying to avoid the leering stares from the other witches. Her hands remain tightly wound around the tome, her fingernails scraping against the century old leather, dark with age but still as intact as it was the day it was created. In this moment, she forgets about everything happening around her; she forgets about Crona, she forgets about whatever Maba is talking about, and all she can think about is the information proscribed in the tome, it's the next piece in her constant research.

They arrive back at the house without saying anything of importance to each other. He just stands around until he's told what to do, until he can be useful. That's what mother would want, yes? He sits in the living room, talking internally to Ragnarok, their bickering giving him the only stimulus he currently has. While doing this, he starts untying and retying the collar of his uniform a few times, before seemingly getting it right. It's hard to think through the yelling of the demon inside him, but it brings him a small smile. She would be proud, he hopes.

Shaula sits in her study, the door locked, and she begins to nuerotically flip through the tome, scribbling notes in her journal with a a ballpoint pen. More than once, she makes a mistake she has to correct, her hands and arms are laden with dots of ink where her pen slipped, yet they don't concern her currently. She steadies her shaking hand again, as sweat drips from her forehead, falling onto her lap, staining her skirt.

 _The knowledge provided by the tome given to me by Maba is truly invaluable. The contents are that which enable me to gain a better understanding of the application of poisons ingested and inhaled, and venoms administered intravenously, as well as their applications and effects on the mind. Updates will be made to the current mixture of venom I have created chemically. Certain combinations provided by the book will make it more efficient in banal ways; increased potency, certain herbs that increase volume, etc._

 _The point of the venom, the majority of the base of which is extracted via specimens of bark scorpions, is to eliminate any internal will of the affected person, and when combined with magic, should allow myself to completely override their consciousness, subverting them to whatever I want them to do. Early samples were ineffective on anything but small animals (rats, wild dogs, captured rabbits), however my more recent attempts have been far more successful. I was capable of simultaneously controlling two subjects, and experienced no resistance. Both of these subjects were of weak stock however, so this could be the cause of the effectiveness I experience. Still, with information gleaned from the book, I should be able to improve it's power even further. I also have noted flaws that stem from my need to use the venom of scorpions as a base, as the venom of other animals (snakes, spiders, etc) do not work as well, or at all. Despite the effectiveness of it, the venom still has anatomical effects on the body; necrosis at the site of the puncture wound, pain, and paralysis has been noted in some of the smaller animal subjects. Diluting the concentration of raw venom might help, further research is required._

Her fingers are shaking by this point. Ink droplets, scarlet in color, rattle parts of the page, obscuring letters and words into formless blobs. She sets the pen down as gently as she can, before using her other hand to massage her afflicted palm and digits. She's always been like this with research, whenever she feels she's on the cusp on the one thing that will complete the puzzle to whatever dark creation she's working on. Still, she is a researcher with a stunning lack of subjects to test, and in this particular case, they usually don't last long.

Her eye is twitching again.

"Crona!"

…

She wonders why she didn't think of this sooner.

He isn't going to resist. He doesn't _want_ to resist. He trusts her, and whether or not he should, she doesn't care currently. Crona just meekly blinks while she quickly fumbles with a file she's kept with his physical information, doing her best to adjust her previous serums to account for his scrawny form. She moves back and forth between her study and bedroom, gathering a ring and a small vial of venom, blood red in color. Shaula leans against a door frame as she attempts to steady her ragged breathing.

 _Do I really want to do this?_

Her own voice and conscience snap back at her. _Of course you do. What is there lose?_

The tingling little pricks at the front of her cranium give herself the answer she wants. _Absolutely nothing._

Dimly, she wonders if this is the Sway talking. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. She's stopped caring, even if just for a moment: she _needs_ this. There's just… something missing. A few words.

Little grey eyes, awash with a faux form of innocence that almost seem like a lie, an illusion to what they should represent, fall upon her.

"W-what is that?"

 _There_ it is. His quivering little voice. It's pathetic. A good little experiment that trusts her, one that won't talk or fight back.

She smiles back. "Just a ring I want you to try on."

A more direct lie. She feels like crying, just to let out some form of emotion she usually bottles up. Shaula isn't sad, but it's what her mind jumps towards doing. All she needs to do to silence these thoughts is to remember what she was told, all those centuries ago.

 _Don't cry, dear. There's no reason to waste energy being sad. You have so much to do, so much to change. You'll be better than everyone else._

She takes a few steps forward toward the nervous child that sits cross legged in front of her, and everything becomes a blur, because these aren't the details that are important.

"You might feel a slight… sting. It's nothing, I promise. Sit still, dear..."

A little pin prick. He starts breathing a bit harder. Everything fades to black.

It's nothing serious.

…

Crona groans at first as he's forced to shield his eyes from the catastrophically irritating sunlight. His mood isn't picked up by the feeling of sand against his ankles, how everything seems to be so much larger around him. He dashes grit off the robe he's now wearing, just as he remembers it… Just barely. It's familiar, he's worn it before, but were? When? Now that he thinks about it, where was he before meeting Shaula? He shakes his head. Medusa, her infernal experiments on him. The Black Blood. His gaze steadies upon the horizon, expecting to see an ocean, the gentle aqua splashing against the waves. The lump in his throat just keeps growing.

Nothing but sand dunes. Plateaus of hard rock, little cacti stick out of the ground at seemingly random angles. Little black and blue… things keep dashing on the outside of his vision. He looks down at his hands, more stubby than he remembers, and on his ring finger lies the trinket. A little gold band, hastily made. Wasn't there a red gem in this? He remembers that. Where is it? Crona turns his shaking appendage over to stare at the marking on his palm. A disturbingly painted question mark. The ring doesn't come off, it almost feels glued to his finger. It doesn't feel that long since he's been here, wherever "here" is.

So, he starts walking. What the hell else is he going to do? Just walk, kick things around, wait it out. That's what he did back then. He'll wake up. _Eventually._

If he sits here for long enough, he'll wake up. He'll snap out of this and Shaula will tell him everything is fine, he hopes. It's awfully hot here, nary a breeze runs through the wastes. Ragnarok doesn't even speak to him, not that he exactly wants him to. He uses a thin, brittle stick to carve a circle around him. He's done so before, not like there was ever much to do in this place. Then, _it_ comes back, because of course it does. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

"Hey."

He ignores it.

"Hey."

Still nothing.

"Hey! Come on, talk to me."

"I don't want to."

The shadow retracts in fright, a thin visage of black that rests over the golden sea of sand they sit in.

"T-that's mean. You can't just sit out here all day and not do anything."

Crona sighs. The shadow is wrong of course; he _can_ just sit around and do nothing. Wait for something else to act for him. He misses Shaula already. What was that ring about…?

"Are you listening? Look, we can get to know each other better. Is that good?" It states on the border of pleading. Crona bats an eye at it, which it takes as at least some form of acknowledgement; an improvement.

It seems to calm down. "Let me go first: what's your name?"

His stare is completely blank. What a _banal_ question. How does it not know his name? Are they one in the same, or not? Lucky for him, something else catches his eye: a little scorpion, standing at the edge of the circle. It's mostly tanned body is offset by splotches of blue and red. He shambles towards it, trying not to slip in the sand, as the shadow seems to follow him.

The scorpion makes no movements. It simply sits huddled in the sand, no noise, nothing. Crona blinks at it a few times, the shadow simply exists. The arachnid is so vulnerable; does it really think it can hide in those grains of sand? His thoughts are muddy, yet something breaks through the heat induced dreariness: a few words.

 _Well? Are you going to do it, or not?_

Of course he is. He did it before, he's going to do it again. Pests die so much easier, anyways. He lifts his foot up, the shadow cast by it covering up what bits of the husk of the scorpion can be seen; his foot sets down, intent on crushing… and yet, there's no sound. He blinks and just finds his shoe buried in the soft, hot sand.

"It moved."

Crona turns his head to see the shadow give a mocking look of sadness, it's white eyes squinting to the sky.

"Oh no… it stung you." It quips.

He looks down at his left foot, still planted inside the circle. A few little dots follow a pattern to his ankle, where the creature lies, it's little stinger stuck into his leg. He pulls both his feet away, only to fall to his back, as the pest scurries back into the sand. Nervously, he rubs his hands over the little red dot, hot to the touch, a few beads of sweat drip from his forehead only to immediately evaporate as they patter onto the ground. There's a dull throbbing motion that rocks throughout his leg, but he feels no pain, it's strange. The scorpion simply burrows itself back into the sand where he's sitting. The shadow follows his movements, but not his expressions; it's uncanny. He _hates_ it.

"What… what are you going to do about it?"

Crona ignores it, again. He doesn't really have an answer, and even if he did, the shadow doesn't deserve to know. Besides, that isn't what he cares about right now; he's more concerned with a lapse in the circle. The scorpion must've interrupted the nice clean angle when it skittered behind him. He attempts to move to fix it, his mind becoming more and more cloudy, but he gets two steps in before collapsing face first into the hot grains.

The shadow isn't speaking anymore, if it's even still there. He can't move any of his muscles, and sleeping sounds so nice right now. The dangers of such a situation dimly flash through his mind, but there's nothing to worry about, right?

It's all just a dream.

...

Shaula experiences little in the way of what the humans term "life's pleasures". They get in the way of her research, they inhibit time she could spend doing something productive.

Food? Alcohol?

She eats whatever she can consistently make cheap. Most food tastes bad anyways, the only spice she has any intimate knowledge of is salt. Most alcohol tastes terrible to her; and besides, why be imbided when she can work on advancing her cause? It rattles and fogs the mind. To her, it's low and disgusting.

Travelling?

She can't go anywhere. She has to have her Soul Protect on constantly, going to get provisions from the local stores is a hassle enough. She uses magic to recolor her hair, and contacts to neutralize the color in her eyes. Shibusen has agents in every corner of the globe, anyways, she wouldn't make it far. What way is that to live?

Sex?

All of her energy is dedicated towards gathering knowledge, fine-tuning certain mixtures, chemicals, making sure everything is exactly the way it must be. She only mechanically masturbates whenever the urges distract her too much; if she could magically suppress her libido, she would.

Friends?

She has none. Not anymore, at least. Sure, she's done her best to make colleagues in the Order, but it's purely out of convenience. They hate her, she hates them. A favor here, a favor there, that's not friendship. Besides, what person could understand her?

Family?

Father and mother have been dead for centuries, and they were the only ones she ever truly loved. The father she knew was skittish, always content to sit on the edge of their property and toil late into the night with his jewelry. He made rings, trinkets, necklaces, anything and everything that he could, and sold it to whatever noble passed through at the time. He dissappeared one day, and she was never told why. All she had to remember him was a small silver band he gifted to her on a birthday.

Mother was a good witch. A fine witch. A very unremarkable witch. Shaula didn't mind, it meant could spend more time together, rather than toiling away fighting against the Shinigami. They held hands and walked by this small lake near their house whenever they could, it felt nice to simply observe the calm body of water simply exist. Then, one day, she died. Not in combat with one of the Eight Legions, or at the hands of an enraged mob, but because of a disease that they couldn't diagnose.

It fell to the eldest of the siblings to care for the other two. Shaula spent more of her life being raised by Arachne than she ever did from mother, and for years, she didn't quite mind. There was always something missing though, something she would never pinpoint until years later. She disliked Medusa most of all, but was never able to hate her. Their parents told her that hate was a very unproductive emotion; after all, was it not better to spend time fixing things, to improve oneself? So she tolerated the bullying, shrugged it off best she could.

They say the Sway first enters a person's mind when they're a child, in the form of odd nightmares. She can't recall exactly how many times she and Medusa would tramp into the eldest's room, so they could cry into her chest and be told everything was fine. They slept more in Arachne's arms than they did in their own beds, and everything felt like it would turn out fine. She used to look back at those memories with fondness; they _had_ loved each other, once upon a time. Now, all she can dream about is how weak she was back then. Arachne never cared about her; how could such a horrible manipulator ever demonstrate unconditional love? Medusa never did, either; the bullying, sometimes escalating to Medusa threatening to beat her, only to be broken up by Arachne not wanting to have to spend time healing them both _again._ They both had their own little ways of manipulating each other to get what they want, that's how it always had been, she saw that clearly now.

She used to wonder if she were any better, but now? She doesn't care anymore. They're not here, anymore. She is. The weakest of the infernal Gorgon siblings is alive, and the strongest now lie dead. She used to wonder if things could've turned out differently, but she's long since understood the futility of wondering about the effects of the past.

No, she knows few earthly pleasures, except for maybe her apparel, well made and classy as it always was; but that wasn't a pleasure. It was expected of her, it always had been, and there was never anything to gain by not abiding by that standard.

Shaula has one goal in mind: to destroy Shibusen. How? She doesn't know how, just yet, but the venom is a key part of the puzzle, and so is the boy. One day, she'll prove herself to be the greatest witch who ever lived, all she needs is some time.

Crona's head rests gently in her lap. She strokes his hair and hums while the venom courses through his veins; this should've worked already. She wonders if maybe she overdid it, if he's still alive. The protrusions along his body that seem to shift when she isn't looking worry her. Oh well, more things to test.

The spikes that gore the length of her leg are now the problem.

...


End file.
